as you all know, friends of dick durbin and friends of the former first president bush, they were virtually whitewashed out of e-- out of the picture in that period of time include big the first president bush's son, which i owls thought was sort of sad because i've come to admire the service of president george h.w. bush. so that bit of reminiscence, i'll just turn it over but i do think, i agree that it's harder now, hard for me to see something serious coming together except for the fact that something has to happen, and i feel a little more optimistic than i did preelection but we can talk about why that is. >> before joe, i wanted to jump in. i forgot to mention the most important part of joe's resume, he's also an adjunct professor at george mason university. >> i was just about to correct you on that, paul. thank you, jackie. that was interesting. never sat at a dais before, especially not in the chairman's seat. this is pretty cool. let me try to give you -- i have 12 lessons that i've wren down but i should note at the outset i was not at an truse, though i was working on the hill